Effects of starting powder and thermal treatment on the aerosol deposited BaTiO₃ thin films toward less leakage currents

To prepare high-density integrated capacitors with low leakage currents, 0.2-μm-thick BaTiO₃ thin films were successfully deposited on integrated semiconductor substrates at room temperature by the aerosol deposition (AD) method. In this study, the effects of starting powder size were considered in an effort to remove macroscopic defects. A surface morphology of 25.3 nm and an interface roughness of less than 50 nm were obtained using BT-03B starting powder. The nano-crystalline thin films achieved after deposition were annealed at various temperatures to promote crystallization and densification. Moreover, the influence of rapid thermal annealing process on the surface morphology and crystal growth was evaluated. As the annealing temperature increased from room temperature to 650°C, the root mean square (RMS) roughness decreased from 25.3 to 14.3 nm. However, the surface was transformed into rough performance at 750°C, which agreed well with the surface microstructure trend. Moreover, the crystal growth also reveals the changes in surface morphology via surface energy analysis.